Introducing the Higher Stage of Descenting!

Brambo · Post by **Brambo** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 9:36 am

Hello fellow Descenters,

A couple of days ago I showed you my level called Claustrofobia 2.0. Well after a couple of posts I realized that the level may be a bit too large, so I did a little editing on the original and came up with the following:

http://www.geocities.com/bramhogeweg/Claustrosmall.jpg

It is of considerably smaller size and therefore I think small enough to please some of you, in special Diedel

. If you find it too small (like if you want to play with 6 or maybe 8 ) you can do this level, but the original too ofcourse.

All those are downloadable at: http://www.geocities.com/bramhogeweg

If some of you like it well enough that you might even play in it, please let me know about it.

Well that's all for now, maybe I'll make a level of the lower-lava part of Claustrofobia 2.0 some time, I think that needs a little more work.
For some history on the level see:
phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=6865

Love and peace! (especially when fighting)

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 1:07 pm

Nice! Now that looks like an interesting CTF level to me.

A few things: All red doors are upside down.

The door frames in the start rooms (lava pits with animated red arrow texture) have the wrong texture.

The light textures in the corridor you enter when leaving the lava pits need some alignment.

Imho those 4-segment doors look butt-ugly. But that's just my opinion.

I would use less different textures for this level as well. It looks pretty wild now.

Brambo · Post by **Brambo** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 2:49 pm

I like wild!

by the way, I like the textures too (that's just my opinion), but for the alignment I must admit there are some SMALL things left.

I wonder if there is a special tool for the texture alignment, DLE-XP isn't all that much.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 3:13 pm

Just take a look at some levels from the D2 single player campaign to see some examples of good texturing. Or get some levels made by Kruel: They're exceptionall well textured.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 9:16 pm

Nope, for D2 levels DLE-XP is about as good as it gets. You can't really do anything fancy with it... but you can do most of what you might want with a little more manual effort and so on.

Structurally I -think- this level is good... not that special for architecture (not bad either) but for level flow it looks well thought-out.

I've also seen worse texture schemes, although I was responsible for most of them, and they didn't ever see the light of day...

I guess it really is hard to justify this, because making a level look 'realistic' means it gets very boring, and it also means there are textures you can never use; finally, no-one really wants to put in the effort to get it that perfect.

But nonetheless, over time the Descent community has reached a kind of consensus about what looks good/acceptable, most of it through the influence of Parallax and some fairly significant designers like Luke Schneider and Kruel.

Unfortunately, the texturing in this level goes right against most of it.

Basically, it seems you've tried to use as many different textures as humanly possible; you don't generally see that in most levels these days. Also, the fact that many of them contrast very greatly with each other - over a distance of only about 60 units you can go from yellow to green to blue - doesn't look very good any more.

Your choice though. If you like vaguely psychadelic texture schemes, go for it... just be aware a lot of people don't.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 9:23 pm

IMO, the texture choices are very refreshing, but you do have too many schemes going on in the level. I can point out at least three-- the greenish/bluish one, the yellowy "alien1" set, and the ice set. Aesthetically, it's usually better to stick to just one. If you have three different sets that you like, make three different levels.

Also, Kruel's texture scheme is cool, but it's unfortunate that it's the only one that he ever used.

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 10:51 pm

The irony is that Descent 1 went really crazy with texture scheme. Look at Level 15, for example.

But yeah, I think this one is a bit garish. The "ice" textures in the upper regions seem to stand out the most.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 11:11 pm

Well yeah, Parallax got away with a lot of things it shouldn't have, principally because of the dim lighting where such travesties were involved.

Or because no-one really thought about it. If I made Descent 1 level 1, people would look rather oddly at the start room, and once they saw the red key area and the rather sudden transition... would decide this level was just really bad.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 3:31 am

Sirius,

I was talking about D2 Level 1, not D1. Parallax' level designers had been learning, too ... D1 Level 1 has misaligned textures and some gruesome texturing. The texturing in their D2 levels for the most part is executed excellently.

Kruel has at least two texturing schemes - and the way he has textured his stuff imo is just awesome. He had an incredible eye for details, applying an extra texture here, and another one there ... superb.

Personally, I believe his D2 level creations are the most creative and best looking ever made. Just look at his level 'Koolkave'- the apex of his works. Awesome.

Brambo · Post by **Brambo** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:44 am

I spent too much time in texture alignment manually, I think I leave it with that.

For now I like the level as it is, I like the textures, and even the alignment. Yes I know all descent 1 + 2 level blindfolded. Why can't you just play it, that's what this is all about isn't it?!

I get it,

It's not good (realistic) enough for you guys....

That's too bad....

Thought I could make some of you happy with it

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:59 am

If getting our new levels played was what this was all about, each and every one of us has failed miserably.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:45 am

ROFL @ Jeff! I'm afraid our levels don't get played all that much.

Ppl stick with the same 5 or 6 levels they used to play the last 10 years.

_______________

Brambo,

I like the level structure very much. Just the texturing is something I think might be worth being worked over.

So don't take my post as an attempt to put your work down - not so at all. It's just some feedback that is meant to help you polishing it further.

Ofc texturing is very much subject to personal taste.

karx

Edit: Brambo, I have re-textured your level. Take a look at this.

There were a lot of distorted faces in your level, btw.

pATCheS · Post by **pATCheS** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 9:48 pm

And where the heck are the radiosity lightmaps?!?

The colored lighting looks pretty good in that level... I really want to see lightmapping and shadowing in D2. But unfortunately this would require a significant restructure of all of D2's rasterization. Which it needs anyway.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:37 am

Lightmapping is almost done. For some strange reason it is very slow on my machine though (Athlon 64 + X800 XT PE). On other machines (Radeon 9600, GF 6600) no problems.

Shadowing will take a little longer, I'm afraid.

But go for it, patches, you know where the source code is.

Brambo · Post by **Brambo** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:47 am

Well.....I don't know what to say.....

The efford you put into this, amazing!

How do you recognize a distorted face?
What did you do about it?

I am working on an other version too.

Thanks for your attension!

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:02 am

So you like what I did with your level?

You can keep that version and offer it as an alternative to your D2 textured level, if you like.

I see distorted faces, when the texture looks stretched or squeezed together somehow in DLE-XP textured mine view. I have spent thousands of hours building D2 levels, so I am used to seeing such things.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:08 am

...lol! Nice take on the level, Diedel. Of course, it looks like you made it now...

pATCheS · Post by **pATCheS** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:27 am

double post T_T

pATCheS · Post by **pATCheS** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:37 am

I'd do it if I knew the first thing about 3D engine design

The renderer needs to be rewritten from the where the polygons spawn in the first place, and then some. The menu system needs a dump, too (that'd be a good place to start, actually. hmm, XML menus anyone?

). A lot of the game could be rewritten, but the trouble is maintaining structure, and functionality. The renderer is a biggie. Embedded development is SO much easier

How was lightmapping implemented? Is the source for it available? And what should I do for source control? D2's codebase is beyond too big for me to manage mentally. I'd like to get into this again, but I really ought to not work on it the way I did last time

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:54 am

Sirius wrote:...lol! Nice take on the level, Diedel. Of course, it looks like you made it now...

Hm ... I am pretty much into to UT textures ... this will change though, as I now have all these D3 textures ... hmmmm ...

But - I did not create the level structure, which I find pretty neat. Just repainted the walls.

Anyway, the level's texturing now is a good offset to do some consistent texturing with D2 textures as well, me thinks.

Brambo · Post by **Brambo** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 8:43 am

Your level doesn't work on my editor nor the game, I have d2x_gl becouse the sound in it is less cracky. Yea thats right, I don't know what is causing it but descent is the only game it's sound really is crackling/tikking/jittering (don't really know how you say that sort of thing in english).

By the way, the textures you replaced, it sure has something but its not really my kind of thing.

I'm sorry...

I'm hard working on a version that is probebly something you like. Don't forget, it's my first level and this one is only a part of the original. What I liked so much about it was that I started with lava at the bottom and ended at the top with ice. I between I made a tropical like part, above that green went to green/bleu green/bleu went to bleu. I sure thought about the textures. At the beginning I didn't even think of publishing it.

I have ofcourse played descent with my visible and very good friends for many years now and a while ago one of them came with a level pack of like 2000 levels. He downloaded it from some site, first I was glad to finally play some new levels (always did pandemonia or pyroside), but after 2 days of intense sorting I discovered that there weren't much REALLY cool levels. So that's when I dicided to make my own. This was only 3 or so weeks ago.
Aclually I didn't think Descent was still played in this amount.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:58 am

I don't know which editor you are using - I recommend DLE-XP, the successor of DMB2. It's available on my web site. My newest levels and my derivate of your level will only work in D2X-W32.

I understand your texturing concept now. Imo there were however just so many different textures that the texturing lacked some harmony and flow and made it rather hard for me to concentrate or recognize anything - esp. the bots.

I think there are many cool D2 multiplayer levels around. The most popular levels are rather small and easy to navigate though, so that you will always find an opponent and have very intense battles. There are some very good multiplayer levels on my Descent site, too.

Brambo · Post by **Brambo** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:18 am

I use DLE-XP too, it says : "version 11 unknown cannot load this level".

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 12:24 pm

How about getting the current version ...

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:45 pm

I must say I'm kind of amused you played Pyrocide so much. Most people I play against have probably never heard of it. In my personal opinion, you can go much worse for levels to overplay.

But overplayed is overplayed.

Yes, levels of the sort you're looking for are quite hard to come by, because a guy called Spaz came around, released a few levels with a very distinctive style, and then everybody else copied him forever and ever amen.

There are a few others out there though... Eon X/Havoc X come to mind... plus anything by Solrazor (I think that was his name during much of his D2 work) is pretty good.

The um... fire to ice concept... reminds me of one level I once made called 'Terminator'... which was mainly a proof-of-concept in about 2002, I think, to show you COULD put fire and water in the same level without things turning bad...

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 5:27 pm

Sirius,

could you please e-mail me the Pyrocide levels to karx11erx at hotmail dot com?

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 5:45 pm

If necessary, probably, but the level set is available online:
http://www.descent2.com/pyrocide/

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 5:51 pm

The d/l link given there is dead. descent.com is dead. They seem to have removed their archives.

pATCheS · Post by **pATCheS** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 10:10 pm

http://web.archive.org/web/200202240041 ... pyro-s.exe

Kyouryuu · Post by **Kyouryuu** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:03 am

It's sort of pointless to make a multiplayer set. I thiink what would truly be interesting is the creation of a brand new single-player campaign knowing what we do now.

Reasons for this:
- D2XWin32 is infused with a ton of new features, perhaps most notably colored lighting, that can do a ton to set the mood of a level.
- We have all of the tools necessary to produce custom textures (in some cases super high-res textures), custom robots, and briefings.
- It takes far less time to engineer a good D2 campaign than a single D3 map.
- It's just as fun.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 2:59 am

...it's actually in the works.

Sort of. Not a great deal has been done yet, but these things don't have to take long.

Brambo · Post by **Brambo** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:50 am

Hello again,

While the completion of my level is nearing the begining of the end I would like to say something about the new version of d2x_w32 I downloaded yesterday.

A MIRRACLE HAS OCCURED!

...

The sound on my last version was very distorted, now it has been CURED!!

Diedel, was it you that made this heappen?

If it was THANKS

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 6:05 am

Feel free to rip whatever structures you like from my levels (e.g. the big tubes in my newest level - they were very time-consuming to make, but look good imho).

If desired, I will further increase the segment count limit (e.g. to 5000 or so ...)

If you need more walls, I will have to make some more fundamental changes to D2X-W32 though.

Brambo · Post by **Brambo** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:21 am

thanks again for all the efford you put into descent these days. Thanks for the offer of ripping things out of your levels, but I do not like things of that kind. I think you can't make levels with someone others art, then your violating the tough of creativity the hand of the artist had put in it, in my opinion.

Brambo · Post by **Brambo** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:24 am

By the way,

I don't think I need any more walls, let alone segments.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:33 am

I was talking to Sirius and Kyo.

And I don't know why your sound now works (maybe you installed the newest SDL lib from d2x-w32.zip together with the D2X-W32 update?). Good to hear though.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 9:42 pm

Yeah, I do remember the tubes, and they look pretty good from memory. Among other things. I guess if I ever need something like that...

Regarding wall and segment count, it all comes down to what I'm doing, again. I'll get in touch if it happens.

I assume the reason for more fundamental changes, though, is the little '254' thing... sounds very much like they pushed it up to the limit for an 8-bit integer. Why they chose 8-bit I'm not sure, but I guess there's a reason somewhere.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:12 am

At the times when Descent 1 and 2 were created, 254 was more than enough for the levels the computers of that time could run. Today is a different story, with 1 GB being the average memory size of gaming computers ...

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:19 am

...I would suppose the reason for 254 as opposed to 256 is ... wait... well, firstly there would probably be a '-1' value of some sort, indicating no wall... not sure what the other value is.

But yeah, 254 was usually more than enough then. It normally is more than enough now, too, unless you actually want to make levels larger than you have any right doing.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:57 pm

It is 254 because you need one value meaning "no wall here", which happens to be 255 (or -1, if interpreted as signed byte). Then, D2 usually wants to have pairs of walls, at least if a wall sits on a cube side that is connected to another cube side (some of my levels crashed with D2 or D2X because I had used single sided walls, as a wall on the opposing side wasn't really needed and I needed to save walls). So it seems like Parallax chose to use an even max. wall count. Ofc, there are cases where you can only apply a single wall (overlays, i.e. switches on wall come to my mind).